Images posted on Twitter showed flooded streets of Bujumbura and residents clearing their houses after the flooding.

Food aid

Police said several hundred homes were destroyed and more than 100 people injured in Bujumbura, which lies on the northeastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.

Houses in the poorer parts of town are often built from mud bricks, which offer no resistance to torrents of water and mud.

Nizigama, touring the disaster zone with other ministers, promised food aid to those who lost their homes and said the government would bear the cost of burying relatives and would provide new housing.